Experimenting in DOS arcana.

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@7451

1 files changed, 656 insertions, 656 deletions

diff --git a/README.win32 b/README.win32
index 8e29accdbb..a0d7a0b678 100644
--- a/README.win32
+++ b/README.win32
@@ -1,656 +1,656 @@
-If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
-see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
-specially designed to be readable as is.
-
-=head1 NAME
-
-perlwin32 - Perl under Win32
-
-=head1 SYNOPSIS
-
-These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and
-2000).
-
-=head1 DESCRIPTION
-
-Before you start, you should glance through the README file
-found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution
-was extracted.  Make sure you read and understand the terms under
-which this software is being distributed.
-
-Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the
-known limitations of this port.
-
-The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
-only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems.  In
-particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
-"Configure".
-
-You may also want to look at two other options for building
-a perl that will work on Windows NT:  the README.cygwin and
-README.os2 files, which each give a different set of rules to build
-a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms.  Those two methods will
-probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you
-will also need to download and use various other build-time and
-run-time support software described in those files.
-
-This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native"
-port of Perl to Win32 platforms.  The resulting Perl requires no
-additional software to run (other than what came with your operating
-system).  Currently, this port is capable of using one of the
-following compilers:
-
-      Borland C++		version 5.02 or later
-      Microsoft Visual C++	version 4.2 or later
-      Mingw32 with GCC		version 2.95.2 or better
-
-The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler.  Support
-for it is still experimental.  (Older versions of GCC are known
-not to work.)
-
-This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that
-is used to build extensions to perl).  Therefore, you should be
-able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites.
-See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this.
-
-=head2 Setting Up
-
-=over 4
-
-=item Make
-
-You need a "make" program to build the sources.  If you are using
-Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000, nmake will work.  All other
-builds need dmake.
-
-dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features
-and parallelability.
-
-A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
-
-    http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip
-
-(This is a fixed version of original dmake sources obtained from
-http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/.  As of version 4.1PL1, the original
-sources did not build as shipped, and had various other problems.
-A patch is included in the above fixed version.)
-
-Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions
-in the README.NOW file).
-
-=item Command Shell
-
-Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT.  Some versions of the
-popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble.
-If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd
-shell.
-
-The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the
-"command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x.  You will need to
-use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x.
-
-The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell.
-
-Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces.  The
-build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail.
-
-=item Borland C++
-
-If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake.
-(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled, and will not
-work for MakeMaker builds.)
-
-See L/"Make"> above.
-
-=item Microsoft Visual C++
-
-The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
-You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere
-like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN.  This will set your build environment.
-
-You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++, provided:
-you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name
-under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment,
-and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake".  The
-latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default
-make for building extensions using MakeMaker.
-
-=item Mingw32 with GCC
-
-GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from:
-
-    ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/
-
-The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers.
-
-Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated
-in the README for the GCC bundle.  You may need to set up a few environment
-variables (usually run from a batch file).
-
-The version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe released 7 November 1999 left out
-a fix for certain command line quotes, so be sure to download and install
-fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe too.
-
-You also need dmake.  See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Building
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
-This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
-versions of nmake that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk"
-that will work for all supported compilers.  The defaults in the dmake
-makefile are setup to build using the GCC compiler.
-
-=item *
-
-Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if using nmake) and change the values
-of INST_DRV and INST_TOP.   You can also enable various build
-flags.  These are explained in the makefiles.
-
-You will have to make sure CCTYPE is set correctly, and CCHOME points
-to wherever you installed your compiler.
-
-The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++
-may not be correct for some versions.  Make sure the default exists
-and is valid.
-
-If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(),
-enable the appropriate option in the makefile.  des_fcrypt() is not
-bundled with the distribution due to US Government restrictions
-on the export of cryptographic software.  Nevertheless, this routine
-is part of the "libdes" library (written by Eric Young) which is widely
-available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example:
-"ftp://fractal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/").  Set CRYPT_SRC to the
-name of the file that implements des_fcrypt().  Alternatively, if
-you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), you can set
-CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name.  The location above contains
-many versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly different
-implementations of des_fcrypt().  Older versions have a single,
-self-contained file (fcrypt.c) that implements crypt(), so they may be
-easier to use.  A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is
-in des_fcrypt.patch.
-
-Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
-fail at run time.
-
-Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
-
-=item *
-
-Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
-
-This should build everything.  Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
-perl56.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's
-under the lib\auto directory.  If the build fails for any reason, make
-sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Testing
-
-Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test").  This will run most of the tests from
-the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
-
-There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT 4.0 or
-Windows 2000.  Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior
-command shell.
-
-Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
-native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
-spaces.  So don't do that.
-
-If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
-failures in op/stat.t.  Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
-
-If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t
-arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system
-default path.  You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages
-from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory
-(usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32), and rerun the test.
-
-Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
-
-=head2 Installation
-
-Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install").  This will put the newly
-built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
-Makefile.  It will also install the pod documentation under
-C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
-C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>.  To use the Perl you just installed,
-you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable,
-C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin>, and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>.
-For example:
-
-    set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
-
-If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the
-installation structure is much simpler.  In that case, it will be
-sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance:
-
-    set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
-
-=head2 Usage Hints
-
-=over 4
-
-=item Environment Variables
-
-The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
-into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
-using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
-
-If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB
-to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl
-to look for libraries.  Look for descriptions of other environment
-variables you can set in L<perlrun>.
-
-You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
-backtick commands via PERL5SHELL.  See L<perlrun>.
-
-Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default
-values if you choose to put them there.  Perl attempts to read entries from
-C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>.
-Entries in the former override entries in the latter.  One or more of the
-following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
-
-    lib-$]		version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
-    lib			standard library path to add to @INC
-    sitelib-$]		version-specific site library path to add to @INC
-    sitelib		site library path to add to @INC
-    vendorlib-$]	version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
-    vendorlib		vendor library path to add to @INC
-    PERL*		fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
-
-Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal.  Substitute whatever version
-of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>.  Paths must be
-separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
-
-=item File Globbing
-
-By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension,
-which provides portable globbing.
-
-If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
-filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob
-to override the internal glob() implementation.  See L<File::DosGlob> for
-details.
-
-=item Using perl from the command line
-
-If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
-shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
-with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
-
-The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that
-the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.
-First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and
-COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle
-redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the
-executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining
-command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library
-upon which Perl was built.
-
-It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
-runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
-wildcards need not be quoted).  Also, the quoting behaviours of the
-shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are
-using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent).  The only (useful) quote
-character is the double quote (").  It can be used to protect spaces in
-arguments and other special characters.  The Windows NT documentation
-has almost no description of how the quoting rules are implemented, but
-here are some general observations based on experiments:  The C runtime
-breaks arguments at spaces and passes them to programs in argc/argv.
-Doublequotes can be used to prevent arguments with spaces in them from
-being split up.  You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping
-it with a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double
-quotes.  The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the
-argument will be stripped by the C runtime.
-
-The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
-double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always
-be true).  Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or the C
-runtime.  The caret "^" has also been observed to behave as a quoting
-character, but this appears to be a shell feature, and the caret is not
-stripped from the command line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime
-phase does not treat the caret as a quote character).
-
-Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
-
-This prints two doublequotes:
-
-    perl -e "print '\"\"' "
-
-This does the same:
-
-    perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
-
-This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
-
-    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
-
-This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
-
-    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
-
-This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
-
-    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
-
-This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
-
-    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
-
-This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
-
-    perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
-
-This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
-
-    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
-
-
-Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
-is left as an exercise to the reader :)
-
-One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
-Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating
-that environment variable expansion is needed.  Under this shell, it is
-therefore important to always double any % characters which you want
-Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are
-quoted.
-
-=item Building Extensions
-
-The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
-of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
-Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN.
-
-Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
-in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at
-http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
-porting modules that don't readily build.
-
-Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
-be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
-
-    perl Makefile.PL
-    $MAKE
-    $MAKE test
-    $MAKE install
-
-where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
-use.  Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is.  Some extensions
-may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything, or
-fail), but most serious ones do.
-
-It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and
-ensure Config.pm knows about it.  If you don't have nmake, you can
-either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier, or get an
-old version of nmake reportedly available from:
-
-    ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe
-
-Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
-CPAN:
-
-    http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz
-
-You may also use dmake.  See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
-
-Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
-depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using.  Therefore, it is
-important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
-
-    make='nmake'	# MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
-    make='dmake'	# MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
-    any other value	# MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
-    			    (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
-
-If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,
-edit Config.pm to fix it.
-
-If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
-C compilers.  You must make sure you have set up the environment for
-the compiler for command-line compilation.
-
-If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
-why it failed, and report problems to the module author.  If
-it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
-that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
-utility.
-
-=item Command-line Wildcard Expansion
-
-The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such
-as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to
-programs.  They consider it the application's job to handle that.
-This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,
-perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.
-However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the
-behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the
-compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers).  Besides, it may
-be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an
-alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
-
-Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
-about it: 1) you can start using it right away 2) it is more powerful,
-because it will do the right thing with a pattern like */*/*.c
-3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it 4) you can
-extend the method to add any customizations (or even entirely
-different kinds of wildcard expansion).
-
-	C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
-	# Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
-	use File::DosGlob;
-	@ARGV = map {
-		      my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
-		      @g ? @g : $_;
-		    } @ARGV;
-	1;
-	^Z
-	C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
-	C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
-	p4view/perl/perl.c
-	p4view/perl/perlio.c
-	p4view/perl/perly.c
-	perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
-	perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
-	perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
-	perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
-	perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
-	perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
-
-Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
-Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
-set the PERL5OPT environment variable.  If you want argv expansion
-to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
-environment.
-
-If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
-command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary.  The resulting
-binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be
-what you want if you use a shell that does that for you.  The expansion
-done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.
-
-=item Win32 Specific Extensions
-
-A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available
-from CPAN.  You may find that many of these extensions are meant to
-be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
-native port for the Win32 platform.  Since the Activeware port does not
-have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these
-extensions typically do not support those tools either, and therefore
-cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section.
-
-To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
-ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains
-all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from
-CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker
-support.  This bundle is available at:
-
-   http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip
-
-See the README in that distribution for building and installation
-instructions.  Look for later versions that may be available at the
-same location.
-
-=item Running Perl Scripts
-
-Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
-indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.
-Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are
-executables.
-
-Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on
-Win32 rely on the file "extension".  There are three methods
-to use this to execute perl scripts:
-
-=over 8
-
-=item 1
-
-There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will
-work in Windows NT 4.0.  This can be manipulated via the two
-commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT
-4.0.  Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this
-up for perl scripts (Say what?  You thought Windows NT wasn't
-perl-ready? :).
-
-=item 2
-
-Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
-reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
-old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
-regular batch file to the OS, may be used.  The install process
-makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
-perl scripts into batch files.  For example:
-
-	pl2bat foo.pl
-
-will create the file "FOO.BAT".  Note "pl2bat" strips any
-.pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
-
-If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
-"pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
-refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make
-sure that construct works in batch files.  As of this writing,
-4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their
-4NT.INI file, or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT
-startup file to enable this to work.
-
-=item 3
-
-Using "pl2bat" has a few problems:  the file name gets changed,
-so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not
-run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
-original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive
-if the originals get updated often.  A different approach that
-avoids both problems is possible.
-
-A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
-to any filename (along with the .bat suffix).  For example,
-if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
-executed.  Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply
-by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively
-runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".
-With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location
-than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on
-the PATH.  If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic
-links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
-
-Here's a diversion:  copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
-"runperl".  Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
-Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
-
-=back
-
-=item Miscellaneous Things
-
-A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
-able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
-system.
-
-C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
-in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
-like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support).  You may
-have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
-"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
-"foo".
-
-If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
-bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
-find a mailer on your system).
-
-=back
-
-=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
-
-Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
-L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all.  To avoid
-surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl
-in other operating environments or if you intend to write code
-that will be portable to other environments, see L<perlport>
-for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
-
-Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly
-in the Win32 environment.  See L</"Building Extensions">.
-
-Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
-behave as on Unix platforms.  See L<perlport> for the full list.
-
-Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
-doesn't exactly "behave", either :).  For instance, calling C<die()>
-or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
-implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled.
-Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag
-variable in the handler.  Using signals under this port should
-currently be considered unsupported.
-
-Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that 
-you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced
-by C<perl -V>.
-
-=head1 AUTHORS
-
-=over 4
-
-Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
-
-Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
-
-Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt>
-
-=back
-
-This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
-
-=head1 SEE ALSO
-
-L<perl>
-
-=head1 HISTORY
-
-This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,
-and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available
-at the time.  Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks
-since then.
-
-Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
-
-GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
-
-Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
-
-Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
-
-Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
-
-Last updated: 22 March 2000
-
-=cut
+If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you

+see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is

+specially designed to be readable as is.

+

+=head1 NAME

+

+perlwin32 - Perl under Win32

+

+=head1 SYNOPSIS

+

+These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and

+2000).

+

+=head1 DESCRIPTION

+

+Before you start, you should glance through the README file

+found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution

+was extracted.  Make sure you read and understand the terms under

+which this software is being distributed.

+

+Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the

+known limitations of this port.

+

+The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is

+only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems.  In

+particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about

+"Configure".

+

+You may also want to look at two other options for building

+a perl that will work on Windows NT:  the README.cygwin and

+README.os2 files, which each give a different set of rules to build

+a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms.  Those two methods will

+probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you

+will also need to download and use various other build-time and

+run-time support software described in those files.

+

+This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native"

+port of Perl to Win32 platforms.  The resulting Perl requires no

+additional software to run (other than what came with your operating

+system).  Currently, this port is capable of using one of the

+following compilers:

+

+      Borland C++		version 5.02 or later

+      Microsoft Visual C++	version 4.2 or later

+      Mingw32 with GCC		version 2.95.2 or better

+

+The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler.  Support

+for it is still experimental.  (Older versions of GCC are known

+not to work.)

+

+This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that

+is used to build extensions to perl).  Therefore, you should be

+able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites.

+See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this.

+

+=head2 Setting Up

+

+=over 4

+

+=item Make

+

+You need a "make" program to build the sources.  If you are using

+Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000, nmake will work.  All other

+builds need dmake.

+

+dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features

+and parallelability.

+

+A port of dmake for Windows is available from:

+

+    http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip

+

+(This is a fixed version of original dmake sources obtained from

+http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/.  As of version 4.1PL1, the original

+sources did not build as shipped, and had various other problems.

+A patch is included in the above fixed version.)

+

+Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions

+in the README.NOW file).

+

+=item Command Shell

+

+Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT.  Some versions of the

+popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble.

+If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd

+shell.

+

+The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the

+"command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x.  You will need to

+use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x.

+

+The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell.

+

+Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces.  The

+build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail.

+

+=item Borland C++

+

+If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake.

+(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled, and will not

+work for MakeMaker builds.)

+

+See L/"Make"> above.

+

+=item Microsoft Visual C++

+

+The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.

+You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere

+like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN.  This will set your build environment.

+

+You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++, provided:

+you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name

+under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment,

+and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake".  The

+latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default

+make for building extensions using MakeMaker.

+

+=item Mingw32 with GCC

+

+GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from:

+

+    ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/

+

+The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers.

+

+Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated

+in the README for the GCC bundle.  You may need to set up a few environment

+variables (usually run from a batch file).

+

+The version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe released 7 November 1999 left out

+a fix for certain command line quotes, so be sure to download and install

+fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe too.

+

+You also need dmake.  See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.

+

+=back

+

+=head2 Building

+

+=over 4

+

+=item *

+

+Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.

+This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with

+versions of nmake that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk"

+that will work for all supported compilers.  The defaults in the dmake

+makefile are setup to build using the GCC compiler.

+

+=item *

+

+Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if using nmake) and change the values

+of INST_DRV and INST_TOP.   You can also enable various build

+flags.  These are explained in the makefiles.

+

+You will have to make sure CCTYPE is set correctly, and CCHOME points

+to wherever you installed your compiler.

+

+The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++

+may not be correct for some versions.  Make sure the default exists

+and is valid.

+

+If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(),

+enable the appropriate option in the makefile.  des_fcrypt() is not

+bundled with the distribution due to US Government restrictions

+on the export of cryptographic software.  Nevertheless, this routine

+is part of the "libdes" library (written by Eric Young) which is widely

+available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example:

+"ftp://fractal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/").  Set CRYPT_SRC to the

+name of the file that implements des_fcrypt().  Alternatively, if

+you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), you can set

+CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name.  The location above contains

+many versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly different

+implementations of des_fcrypt().  Older versions have a single,

+self-contained file (fcrypt.c) that implements crypt(), so they may be

+easier to use.  A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is

+in des_fcrypt.patch.

+

+Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will

+fail at run time.

+

+Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.

+

+=item *

+

+Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).

+

+This should build everything.  Specifically, it will create perl.exe,

+perl56.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's

+under the lib\auto directory.  If the build fails for any reason, make

+sure you have done the previous steps correctly.

+

+=back

+

+=head2 Testing

+

+Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test").  This will run most of the tests from

+the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).

+

+There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT 4.0 or

+Windows 2000.  Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior

+command shell.

+

+Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the

+native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains

+spaces.  So don't do that.

+

+If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see

+failures in op/stat.t.  Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.

+

+If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t

+arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system

+default path.  You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages

+from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory

+(usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32), and rerun the test.

+

+Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.

+

+=head2 Installation

+

+Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install").  This will put the newly

+built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the

+Makefile.  It will also install the pod documentation under

+C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under

+C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>.  To use the Perl you just installed,

+you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable,

+C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin>, and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>.

+For example:

+

+    set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%

+

+If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the

+installation structure is much simpler.  In that case, it will be

+sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance:

+

+    set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH%

+

+=head2 Usage Hints

+

+=over 4

+

+=item Environment Variables

+

+The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled

+into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start

+using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).

+

+If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB

+to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl

+to look for libraries.  Look for descriptions of other environment

+variables you can set in L<perlrun>.

+

+You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and

+backtick commands via PERL5SHELL.  See L<perlrun>.

+

+Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default

+values if you choose to put them there.  Perl attempts to read entries from

+C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>.

+Entries in the former override entries in the latter.  One or more of the

+following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:

+

+    lib-$]		version-specific standard library path to add to @INC

+    lib			standard library path to add to @INC

+    sitelib-$]		version-specific site library path to add to @INC

+    sitelib		site library path to add to @INC

+    vendorlib-$]	version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC

+    vendorlib		vendor library path to add to @INC

+    PERL*		fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"

+

+Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal.  Substitute whatever version

+of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>.  Paths must be

+separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.

+

+=item File Globbing

+

+By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension,

+which provides portable globbing.

+

+If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS

+filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob

+to override the internal glob() implementation.  See L<File::DosGlob> for

+details.

+

+=item Using perl from the command line

+

+If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line

+shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased

+with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.

+

+The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that

+the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.

+First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and

+COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle

+redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the

+executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining

+command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library

+upon which Perl was built.

+

+It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C

+runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so

+wildcards need not be quoted).  Also, the quoting behaviours of the

+shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are

+using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent).  The only (useful) quote

+character is the double quote (").  It can be used to protect spaces in

+arguments and other special characters.  The Windows NT documentation

+has almost no description of how the quoting rules are implemented, but

+here are some general observations based on experiments:  The C runtime

+breaks arguments at spaces and passes them to programs in argc/argv.

+Doublequotes can be used to prevent arguments with spaces in them from

+being split up.  You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping

+it with a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double

+quotes.  The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the

+argument will be stripped by the C runtime.

+

+The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by

+double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always

+be true).  Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or the C

+runtime.  The caret "^" has also been observed to behave as a quoting

+character, but this appears to be a shell feature, and the caret is not

+stripped from the command line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime

+phase does not treat the caret as a quote character).

+

+Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:

+

+This prints two doublequotes:

+

+    perl -e "print '\"\"' "

+

+This does the same:

+

+    perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "

+

+This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":

+

+    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch

+

+This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):

+

+    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul

+

+This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":

+

+    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch

+

+This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:

+

+    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less

+

+This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:

+

+    perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less

+

+This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":

+

+    perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less

+

+

+Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x

+is left as an exercise to the reader :)

+

+One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for

+Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating

+that environment variable expansion is needed.  Under this shell, it is

+therefore important to always double any % characters which you want

+Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are

+quoted.

+

+=item Building Extensions

+

+The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth

+of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.

+Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN.

+

+Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work

+in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at

+http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into

+porting modules that don't readily build.

+

+Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can

+be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:

+

+    perl Makefile.PL

+    $MAKE

+    $MAKE test

+    $MAKE install

+

+where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to

+use.  Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is.  Some extensions

+may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything, or

+fail), but most serious ones do.

+

+It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and

+ensure Config.pm knows about it.  If you don't have nmake, you can

+either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier, or get an

+old version of nmake reportedly available from:

+

+    ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe

+

+Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from

+CPAN:

+

+    http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz

+

+You may also use dmake.  See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.

+

+Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax

+depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using.  Therefore, it is

+important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:

+

+    make='nmake'	# MakeMaker emits nmake syntax

+    make='dmake'	# MakeMaker emits dmake syntax

+    any other value	# MakeMaker emits generic make syntax

+    			    (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)

+

+If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,

+edit Config.pm to fix it.

+

+If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported

+C compilers.  You must make sure you have set up the environment for

+the compiler for command-line compilation.

+

+If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for

+why it failed, and report problems to the module author.  If

+it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report

+that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug

+utility.

+

+=item Command-line Wildcard Expansion

+

+The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such

+as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to

+programs.  They consider it the application's job to handle that.

+This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,

+perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.

+However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the

+behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the

+compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers).  Besides, it may

+be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an

+alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.

+

+Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things

+about it: 1) you can start using it right away 2) it is more powerful,

+because it will do the right thing with a pattern like */*/*.c

+3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it 4) you can

+extend the method to add any customizations (or even entirely

+different kinds of wildcard expansion).

+

+	C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm

+	# Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't

+	use File::DosGlob;

+	@ARGV = map {

+		      my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;

+		      @g ? @g : $_;

+		    } @ARGV;

+	1;

+	^Z

+	C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild

+	C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c

+	p4view/perl/perl.c

+	p4view/perl/perlio.c

+	p4view/perl/perly.c

+	perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c

+	perl5.005/win32/perllib.c

+	perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c

+	perl5.005/win32/perllib.c

+	perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c

+	perl5.005/win32/perllib.c

+

+Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create

+Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to

+set the PERL5OPT environment variable.  If you want argv expansion

+to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup

+environment.

+

+If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's

+command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary.  The resulting

+binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be

+what you want if you use a shell that does that for you.  The expansion

+done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.

+

+=item Win32 Specific Extensions

+

+A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available

+from CPAN.  You may find that many of these extensions are meant to

+be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only

+native port for the Win32 platform.  Since the Activeware port does not

+have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these

+extensions typically do not support those tools either, and therefore

+cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section.

+

+To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the

+ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains

+all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from

+CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker

+support.  This bundle is available at:

+

+   http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip

+

+See the README in that distribution for building and installation

+instructions.  Look for later versions that may be available at the

+same location.

+

+=item Running Perl Scripts

+

+Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to

+indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.

+Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are

+executables.

+

+Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on

+Win32 rely on the file "extension".  There are three methods

+to use this to execute perl scripts:

+

+=over 8

+

+=item 1

+

+There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will

+work in Windows NT 4.0.  This can be manipulated via the two

+commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT

+4.0.  Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this

+up for perl scripts (Say what?  You thought Windows NT wasn't

+perl-ready? :).

+

+=item 2

+

+Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are

+reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the

+old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a

+regular batch file to the OS, may be used.  The install process

+makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap

+perl scripts into batch files.  For example:

+

+	pl2bat foo.pl

+

+will create the file "FOO.BAT".  Note "pl2bat" strips any

+.pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.

+

+If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that

+"pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to

+refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make

+sure that construct works in batch files.  As of this writing,

+4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their

+4NT.INI file, or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT

+startup file to enable this to work.

+

+=item 3

+

+Using "pl2bat" has a few problems:  the file name gets changed,

+so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not

+run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the

+original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive

+if the originals get updated often.  A different approach that

+avoids both problems is possible.

+

+A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied

+to any filename (along with the .bat suffix).  For example,

+if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is

+executed.  Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply

+by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively

+runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".

+With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location

+than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on

+the PATH.  If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic

+links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".

+

+Here's a diversion:  copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type

+"runperl".  Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)

+Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH

+

+=back

+

+=item Miscellaneous Things

+

+A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be

+able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your

+system.

+

+C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained

+in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager

+like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support).  You may

+have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.

+"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator

+"foo".

+

+If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a

+bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot

+find a mailer on your system).

+

+=back

+

+=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS

+

+Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in

+L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all.  To avoid

+surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl

+in other operating environments or if you intend to write code

+that will be portable to other environments, see L<perlport>

+for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.

+

+Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly

+in the Win32 environment.  See L</"Building Extensions">.

+

+Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not

+behave as on Unix platforms.  See L<perlport> for the full list.

+

+Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it

+doesn't exactly "behave", either :).  For instance, calling C<die()>

+or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most

+implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled.

+Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag

+variable in the handler.  Using signals under this port should

+currently be considered unsupported.

+

+Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that 

+you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced

+by C<perl -V>.

+

+=head1 AUTHORS

+

+=over 4

+

+Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>

+

+Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>

+

+Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt>

+

+=back

+

+This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.

+

+=head1 SEE ALSO

+

+L<perl>

+

+=head1 HISTORY

+

+This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,

+and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available

+at the time.  Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks

+since then.

+

+Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).

+

+GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).

+

+Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).

+

+Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).

+

+Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).

+

+Last updated: 22 March 2000

+

+=cut